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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657701">for a while (it was love, wasn't it?)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa'>imbellarosa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>15x20 re write, Canon Compliant, Character Deaths, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, This is not a sad story, but it is not a happy one either, honestly this is canon compliant through 15x19 because i didn't have a huge problem with that, i guess but not really?, it's how i thought spn would say goodbye, mostly - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:34:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,633</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657701</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It was a clear night, and he was scared, and Bobby was scared too, though he didn’t show it. They got to the barn and spray-painted every inch of it in signs and sigils, hoping they could call upon the monster strong enough to drag a man out of hell. When they finished the spell, and the light burst, Dean always said he knew then that something big was coming. He just didn’t know how right he was.” </p><p>“That’s a sad story,” his daughter would say, the first time she heard it start to finish. </p><p>“It’s not,” he would wipe her tears. “It’s a love story. Don’t worry. They found each other again - family always does.” </p><p>OR</p><p>The legacies we carry are the stories that make us up. Dean carries more stories than most.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>for a while (it was love, wasn't it?)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I've loved this show for six years now - since i was sixteen - and I needed it to say goodbye softly. It did not, so I'm doing it for them. This work is unbeta'd and my first fic in like 10 months, so please be gentle. The title is from a poem by Sue Zhao, and I listened to a song called Glitter by Patrick Droney when writing this.</p><p>Come say hi to me on tumblr - find me at imbellarosa! Also, if you liked this work, please leave me a comment - we're all a bit sad right now, and I'd love to know if reading this was as cathartic for you as writing it was for me &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They keep going. The road is in front of them, and they keep going, and they don’t stop until they run out of gas. Dean blasts Led Zeppelin until his ears hurt, until his throat is raw from shouting the lyrics. He had forgotten that Cas had left his mixtape in the car last time they’d driven out. A trench coat, too, as it had turned out, a clean one. Guess Cas had gotten used to having his shirt ripped too many times to not have a spare handy. </p><p> (“Why would he not bring another one,” he had asked about Star Trek once, after Kirk’s shirt had been ripped again. </p><p>“Not the point, Cas,” Dean had rolled his eyes and taken a swig of his beer.)</p><p>Sam looks at him like he’s worried, talks to him like he thinks Dean might spontaneously combust at any second. Dean tries to not feel offended. It isn’t like Sam’s wrong, but he wishes that they could act like everything was normal, for a second - like they used to, before Demons and Angels and Apocalypses, and trials and falling and flying. Eileen calls on the third day and shatters the illusion. It’s not that Dean isn’t happy to hear from her - of course he is - but it reminds him that he is acutely alone, and that it’s always going to be that way. They make a sharp U-turn, and start driving in the direction of the coordinates Eileen gave them. </p><p>They stop in a small town along the way, meet some vamps ( “fuckin’ vamps,” Dean grumbles as he decapitates the last one), and keep moving west. Around Pontiac, Illinois, Sam stops the car and gets out.</p><p>“Dean,” he sighs, “what are you planning?”</p><p>“What’d’ya mean,” he replies, knowing <em> exactly </em> what he means. </p><p>“Really?” Sam looks at him. “You want me to believe that Cas is dead and you’re just - what? You’re just accepting it? That it’s <em> fine </em>?” </p><p>“It’s not <em> fine </em> , Sam,” he snaps, then takes a deep breath, and tries again, “it’s not fine. But what do you want me to do? Man, we just went up against God, and we <em> won </em> . Haven’t we learned that every time we play with these big, cosmic pieces that things just get more screwed? We can’t do that again, Sam, <em> Cas </em> wouldn’t want us to do that again. He’d want us - you - to get that apple pie life. So let’s just. Let’s do that for him, okay?”</p><p>“And what about you, Dean,” Sam doesn’t quite seem to believe him. Hell, Dean doesn’t really believe himself yet. “What are you gonna do?” </p><p>“I dunno,” Dean rubs the back of his neck and looks at the trench coat in the backseat. “I’ll probably go back to the bunker, find a new job. Hit the road for a while” - he glances at Sam, who’s hair is almost long enough to tie into a bun - “you and Eileen could come with, if you want.” </p><p>Sam sighs and seems to consider it, but Dean knows what he’s gonna say even before he does. Dean has always known his brother better than himself. </p><p>“Nah,” Sam glances at him, then at his phone, and then at the sunset. “I think I’m gonna go try that apple pie life for a while. Or at least get as close to it as two former hunters can get.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Dean says. “Thought you might say that.” </p><p>“Hey,” Sam grabs his forearm. “If you ever need anything - help on a case, or a place to stay - anything - just let me know.” </p><p>“Yeah,” Dean turns and faces his brother, and it feels like a goodbye, even though he knows it isn’t. </p><p>***</p><p>They reach Vermont - where Eileen had popped up - and met her in front of a bed and breakfast by a lake. She said that she just...appeared there one day, without a phone or money or a place to go. She’d borrowed the owner’s phone and called Sam as soon as she could, and had done some hustling for starter money. Sam stares at her like she’s a miracle, which Dean supposes, she is. It’s the second time she’s come back to him, and Dean can see that Sam knows the absolute unlikeliness.</p><p>“What. Uh, what happened,” Sam clears his throat and tries to rub the tears out of his eyes. “How did it..how are you here?”</p><p><em> Jack </em> , she signs, he said. <em> He said that everyone should be with their families.  </em></p><p>“So, uh,” Sam looks at her like she’s going to disappear any second, “everyone’s...they’re okay?”</p><p><em> Well, </em> she shrugs and smiles, and Sam had missed that mischievous glint in her eye, <em> they’re all probably a bit confused, but we’re .. </em></p><p>“Not dead,” she finishes verbally. Dean looks away, frozen like a deer in the headlights, or a boy lost in a crowd.</p><p>Sam grabs her and he hugs her and she’s small and slight, bones and edges and he can feel the outline of a gun hidden in her waistband and he wonders how and when she got ahold of that, but mostly, he holds her and when he breathes in her hair smells a bit like apples. He doesn’t notice he’s crying until she pulls away and reaches up to wipe his tears. </p><p>“It’s okay,” she says, and then signs, <em> I’m okay </em>. </p><p>“I missed you,” Sam says, “I just. I missed you.”</p><p><em> I was gone for a week </em> , she signs and rolls her eyes theatrically, <em> what would you do without me? </em> </p><p>“Uh,” Sam gives a watery chuckle, “Let’s never find out, okay?”</p><p>That’s when Dean clears his throat. It’s not that he doesn’t love his baby brother, that he isn’t over the moon for him, because of <em> course </em> he is, but...</p><p>“Everyone’s back,” he clears his throat and checks his phone, “all of you?”</p><p>“Dean,” Eileen says, and her voice is kind. Dean thinks that he should learn more sign language. If she has to speak his language, he figures he should learn hers, too. And then he thinks that that sounds like something Cas would have said, and he looks back at Eileen, who’s trying to meet his eyes. </p><p>“Is Cas...” Dean trails off, because he can’t ask the question - he knows the answer.</p><p>“He gave me a message for you,” she says, and she moves out of Sam’s arms to stand in front of him. “He wanted me to tell you that he’s okay. That Jack pulled him out.”</p><p>“So where is he,” Dean growls, turning away. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Sam interpreting, and it strikes him just how much Sam loves this woman - this woman who was one of them, who had fought beside them, who had made her way back to them. He faces her again. “Where” - his voice breaks, and he almost wishes Sam wasn’t here to see it - “where’s Cas?”</p><p>“He told me,” Eileen continues, signing as she speaks, “he told me to tell you that he meant what he said. He said that he wanted to come back and see you, but that his son needs him. That your son needs him. He said that Jack might be God now, but he’s still his son, and he needs help now more than ever. That maybe God needs family, too, to remind him to be kind. Cas” - Eileen is crying now, too, she can’t help it - “Cas said that you’d understand that. That he’s going to be waiting, and that it’ll be sooner than you expect. He says that he’s gonna see you again, and that he knows. He told me to tell you that he knows what you were gonna say. And that he’s always going to...have his ears on? </p><p>“I don’t know what that means,” she finishes with a small shrug. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>But Dean does. And his heart breaks, but he thinks that maybe this time it’s a clean break, that he can maybe start putting it back together. So Dean does the only thing he possibly can do. He gathers his sister, and he hugs her, too.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, letting go. “yeah, I get it. Thanks. That, uh. That means a lot to me.”</p><p>Sam looks at him with those puppy dog eyes he’d had since he was a baby and Dean waves him away.</p><p>“Oh, don’t do that,” he says loudly, “Come on, Sammy, let’s go start the rest of our lives.”</p><p>They turn back and go inside the inn. </p><p>***</p><p>“Hey Cas,” Dean whispers into the dark, the moon just a hangnail crescent shape outside his window. A new lunar cycle. He’s got twenty days ‘til werewolf time. He wonders if he’ll ever stop keeping time with monsters. “Eileen says you have your ears on, so. I mean, here’s hoping she’s right. Uh. I get it. Believe me, man, I do, Jack needs you. Hell, one of the last things I told him was that he wasn’t family and I was wrong - I was so wrong. Tell him. Tell him that I miss him, too. That he’s always gonna be my kid, you know? Even if he is all-powerful now. </p><p>“Um. But. I miss you. I know that you’re up there, and I’ll see you again but that’s gonna be years from now, man, and I just don’t know how to wake up and not see you in the kitchen trying to figure out how the coffee machine works. I don’t know how to watch a movie without looking over to see if you got the joke. Damn. So much for no chick flick moments, huh? Eileen said. She said that you knew and I didn’t have to say anything, but that’s how we got in this mess to begin with, so uh. Here goes, I guess. You gotta know that you’re it for me, man. I’m not as good with words as you are, but at the end of the day, I guess I always kinda thought we were gonna grow old together, you, me, Sam, in the bunker watching bad movies and finding new cases and just...making it up as we go along.</p><p>“I thought that one day you’d just...I don’t know. Move in with me, I guess? And that would be that. I thought we had all the time in the world, and then we had no time, and I didn’t - I froze. I’m sorry that I was a coward. I’m sorry that I didn’t say this - any of this - when you were here to hear it. But, uh. Hope you’re hearing it now.”</p><p>Somewhere, a bee hums its way back to its hive, singing in tune with a prayer. Somewhere, a boy laughs loudly, looking down at his little brother and thinking <em> I will always keep you safe </em>. He won’t, can’t, not always, but that’s another story. Somewhere, a car moves down the interstate, music at full blast, the driver high on life. Somewhere, a writer writes, and the world does not change at all. And, outside his window, Dean sees a falling star, and pretends that it’s an angel with a crack in their chassis, making their way down to find someone who loves them. When he falls asleep, he does not dream. </p><p>***</p><p>Dean goes back to the bunker. It’s big and empty, but it was Cas’ home, and so it’s his, too. Sam and Eileen go back with him, but he knows they won’t be there for too long.</p><p>“This will always be your home, Sammy,” he says when Sam loads his boxes onto an old trailer of Bobby’s, because Dean’s trying to say all the words he feels out loud these days. </p><p>“I know, Dean,” Sam says, even if he doesn’t, and then he hugs his brother tightly, not for the last time, but for the last time in this moment, as the people they once were. When they meet again they won’t have grown together, and so they will be strangers, in some ways. </p><p><em> Maybe </em> , Dean thinks, <em> that’s how it’s supposed to be </em>. He watches Sam and Eileen climb into the truck and heads North, and he calls them at the end of the day to make sure they haven’t run into trouble.</p><p>“You don’t need to come save me yet, Dean,” Sam scoffs, but he’s secretly relieved that they’ll always have this, and so he doesn’t hang up until Eileen shoots him that <em> look </em> that says ‘I’ll murder you if you don’t hurry up’, and he’s more scared of her than Dean, so he lets go and keeps driving.</p><p>Sam doesn’t stop driving until they make their way into Texas, into a small town with a house that sits on a large lot of land, and has a storm cellar in the basement. They raid the local grocery store for all the salt they can find, put rosaries into the water tanks, and then they start unpacking their boxes. Sam thinks that he’s never gonna be out, not really, but he’s not gonna be <em> in </em>either. He needs this for a while - the trees and the long grass and the woman beside him and nothing that goes bump in the night. He sends a quick thank you to Jack and Cas and thinks that maybe they can start to heal. </p><p>***</p><p>Dean watches movies on Thursday nights. At first they’re movies that he meant to show Cas but never got around to: Lord of the Rings, When Harry Met Sally, James Bond. Then he gets around to watching those dumb nature documentaries Cas would always put on when he thought no one was paying attention - Dean was always paying attention, and now that he realizes it he just...he feels so damn stupid. But he watches them anyways, because he thinks Cas would have enjoyed it if he’d sat down with him and watched a thing about bees, just once.</p><p>“The things I do for you, Cas,” he says out loud every time he picks a new one. “Gotta admit, though, that David Attenborough - he knows what he’s talking about.” </p><p>He tries watching a horror movie once, but it hurts, looking at the demons on the screen and remembering Meg and Ruby and Crowley and Lucifer and Michael and Cas. It always comes back to Cas. </p><p>“I just miss you, man,” he says to his room, his car, his cup of coffee. He keeps the dog named Miracle, and he thinks that Cas would have liked that, and he takes him on walks every morning and pretends that Cas is with him.</p><p>“I got a call from Jody last night,” he says to no one, though he puts headphones on so that people who see him don’t think he’s all sorts of wacko. He could just be on the phone. He wishes he was on the phone. “She says that Claire and Kaia are getting really serious. Says they want to move out and start hunting together, and she wanted to know what I thought of it. Can you believe that, Cas? Told her to give her a bit of space, and remind her that she’s family. You probably would have said it better, but. It’s the best I got. I’m not used to this whole...<em> talking </em> thing yet, okay? Claire’s 21 now, Cas. I feel so <em> old </em>. Maybe I’ll invite Jody and Donna and them for Thanksgiving. Sam and Eileen, too, of course, but we have more than enough space in the bunker.”</p><p>Dean will never stop saying ‘we’. </p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>Sam has a kid and names him Dean and Dean cries for hours when he finds out. He calls Claire and tells her to drag her ass over for a visit next month, he knows she and Kaia are busy saving the world, but to not forget about him in the meantime, and she agrees and tells him to get his ass off the phone and enjoy his nephew. </p><p>“You’d love this,” Dean tells Cas, “he’s such a good kid. He never cries. Sam and Eileen almost thought something was wrong with him, Sam even took him to a priest to have him checked over, what with the...you know. But nah. He’s a perfectly normal kid - or, as normal as you can be if you’re Sam’s kid, I guess.”</p><p>Dean laughs, then sighs, looking around Sam’s house, how he and Eileen have built a life and then baby proofed it. Sam hasn’t hunted a single monster in over nine months, and the world is still turning, somehow. Ten years ago, he never would have believed it. But now, well. He has faith.</p><p>“Tell Jack I said hi,” Dean whispers to Cas. “Tell him I miss him, too, and that this kid is gonna know all about him - you, too, you know. I’m never gonna shut up about you.”</p><p>An owl hoots outside of baby Dean’s window, and Dean chooses to believe that it’s Cas laughing at him. </p><p>***</p><p>He gets old. Every Christmas, he sets up a small tree, and at the top of it, he puts an angel with a blue tie and a trench coat. He takes up Bobby’s phone banks, and suddenly he’s got Sheriff’s from all over the country asking him if he’s agent “Swift” or “Spears” and every time he hears the names, he smirks and glances upwards and says, “Yeah, hello, who am I speaking to?” </p><p>Big Threats pop up, and before long he realizes that he’s built quite the network of hunters to deal with it, that he no longer needs to hit the road himself. So he starts buying up classic cars, and he fixes them up. Chevy’s, BMWs, Fords, you name it, he buys it, then he restores and sells them, and uses the money from the sale to buy the next one. He puts the extra cash back into the network of hunters, making sure they have fakes, supplies, and a safe place to go if they need it. And so, over the years, the bunker becomes a sort of Hunter Hub. A home base. </p><p>Sometimes, couples would leave their kids with Dean while they went out on jobs, and he would tell them stories of when he was young. He’d tell them of his brother, who had brought about and then stopped the apocalypse, of the demon who became a friend, about Ellen and Jo and the Roadhouse, how it had been a place like his for people who needed it, he told them about Bobby, the man who raised him and loved him even though they weren’t blood, and he told them about Kevin and Charlie who had been so young and still fought so bravely and taught him so much. He’d show them the postcards that Charlie sent him - was<em> still </em> sending him - from her and Stevie’s world travels. And, of course, he’d tell them about Cas. Always Cas. The angel who saved him from hell, who revolted against heaven for the sake of the whole world (for Dean’s sake, because he loved him), who became a man and kept fighting anyways, though he didn’t know quite how. He told them about Cas and Metatron and Cas and Lucifer and Cas and Naomi and Cas, Cas, Cas, everywhere.</p><p>Sometimes, when the children were older, he’d show them pictures to go along with the stories. A copy of the last picture he has of Jo and Ellen, standing there with Bobby and Sam and him and Cas and he tries hard not to think about how its just him and Sam left. He shows them pictures of Cas in a cowboy hat and Jack in stupid sunglasses. He shows them pictures of Sam and Eileen, even though they don’t visit very often. </p><p>(”I can’t, Dean,” Sam had said. “I can’t raise my kid how dad raised us. I have to be out.”</p><p>“I get that, Sam,” Dean had nodded, “But this is my life. I gotta do this, not just for me.”</p><p>“I know,” Sam had said, and then, “Hey.”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“Love you, jerk.”</p><p>“Bitch.”</p><p>And they had laughed, and Dean would go to their house for Christmas and the New Years and they would go to his for Thanksgiving, and he would meet up with Sam once a month in a small bar in Oklahoma, halfway between Kansas and Texas, and it would be good. Dean would never have believed it, before, but this was...good.)</p><p>***</p><p>Dean’s favorite story to tell is about a man who had never thought he was a man. Never quite human enough, and how he came to realize that being <em> human </em> is what you make of it.</p><p>“His whole life was about hunting monsters,” Dean would say. “Well, that and protecting his family, but the only thing he was ever good at was the monster part.” </p><p>He would tell anyone who would listen about a cross country road trip in the search of a man who had never known how to be a father. </p><p>“Why didn’t you give up,” Dean Jr. (DJ, they’d decided) asks him one time. </p><p>“Because I thought he was family,” Dean says, “and you don’t quit on family.” </p><p>“But he wasn’t,” the boy raises his eyebrows. </p><p>“Nah,” Dean looks away and tries to wipe his eyes, “Family’s the people who protect you, who are good to you, who stand with you, no matter what. Don’t matter if you’re blood or not.”</p><p>The little boy nods and goes back to listening to the story, but he never forgets that. He never lets it go. And when he has his own family, he tells them about his uncle, and then he tells them this:</p><p>“It was a clear night, and he was scared, and Bobby was scared too, though he didn’t show it. They got to the barn and spray-painted every inch of it in signs and sigils, hoping they could call upon the monster strong enough to drag a man out of hell. When they finished the spell, and the light burst, Dean always said he knew then that something big was coming. He just didn’t know how right he was.” </p><p>“That’s a sad story,” DJ’s daughter would say, the first time she heard it start to finish. </p><p>“It’s not,” he would wipe her tears. “It’s a love story. Don’t worry. They found each other again - family always does.” </p><p>Those stories, about two brothers, an angel, and all of the family made along the way would be passed down through generations of Winchesters until it became lore, until they had been repeated so many times that no one knew what was real and what was make believe, until someone wrote it down and found a way to publish it. <em> The Gospel of Winchester </em>, you can almost hear the wind say, in a low, deep growl. </p><p>***</p><p>Dean lives ‘til he’s eighty-two, and he never once stops talking to Cas as though he was still around. Sam still prayed, sometimes, but not like that, never like that. Dean, ironically, was the most devout person most people knew. He always said that a parent should have faith in their kid, and as his kid was God, well. He had no choice but to be faithful. When he was older, his neighbors would laugh - what a crazy thing to say! Dean would smile and wave them off and put his headphones in, ‘call’ his partner, and walk his dog. </p><p>He dies quietly one night in September, and, in the morning, the hunters that had been staying in the bunker find him in his bed, smiling, with an old mixtape on the nightstand. They call Sam, who is an old man himself, and he calls his son (who has kids of his own, Sam can hardly believe it). DJ picks his mom and dad up and takes them to the bunker, where they wrap dean in cloth, build a pyre, and then salt and burn him. A proper hunter’s funeral for a man who never stopped fighting. </p><p>Claire and Kaia are there, and they bring their kids. Sam hugs them and presses the keys to the bunker in Claire’s hand.</p><p>“You keep this place up,” he tells her with a smile, “Dean would have wanted that.”</p><p>She’s older now, well in her sixties - the same age Dean had been when he’d started to run his home like a hostel for hunters - but Sam still sees the eight-year-old girl who’d loved her dad so much she let an angel possess her. He thinks, <em> our bodies, possessed by light </em> , and then he thinks about Cas properly for the first time in many years. <em> Take care of my brother, </em> he prays, and then turns to Claire and leads her inside. They have pie together. </p><p> ***</p><p>When Dean opens his eyes, he’s in the bunker. He feels lighter than he has in decades: his back doesn’t ache and his joints don’t creak, and he hears someone bustling around in the kitchen. <em> Probably Claire </em> , he thinks, and then moves to sit up before noticing his own hands. The wrinkles that had become so familiar are gone. As are the permanent grease stains from spending so much time under the hood of a car. His old hunting boots are by the door, and a plaid overshirt is bunched in the corner of the desk, like it had landed there when he’d tossed it off the night before. But...he was pretty sure he didn’t <em> own </em> that shirt anymore. He can hear a radio crackling from the living room, playing Ramble On. He hasn’t listened to that song since...well. In a long time. </p><p>Slowly, he makes his way down to the kitchen, and stops dead when he reaches the door. </p><p>“I,” he starts, and his voice is young and strong and nothing like he remembers it being when he went to bed. </p><p>“Hello Dean,” Cas says, and then the bacon catches fire.</p><p>“Woah,” Dean exclaims, rushing over and crowding the stove - it used to be like that, he remembers, between cases - Cas never could figure out how to cook and Dean would always end up shooing him out of the kitchen. <em> Can’t have you killin’ us here, Cas, </em> he would say, and finish the meal for both of them. Then they would sit, have a beer, and not say much of anything at all. Dean had almost forgotten. He turns down the stove, tosses the burnt bacon, and clears his throat. “Well, guess it doesn’t matter if you burn the food here, ‘cuz I’m guessing you can’t kill us.”</p><p>“No,” Cas agrees, looking very much as lost and disbelieving as Dean feels. “We’re already dead - or, you are. My condolences.” </p><p>“Nah,” Dean huffs a laugh, “it’s okay. My life was pretty good, you know? But it was probably my time - way past it, even.” </p><p>“Your life was remarkable,” Cas looks at him solemnly. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”</p><p>“You could hear me?”</p><p>“You were not sure,” Cas raises his eyebrows. </p><p>“I had faith,” Dean hip checks him, and smiles. “Thanks for listening.”</p><p>“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there,” Cas says softly.</p><p>“Jack needed you, I get that. And look,” Dean catches his eye and grins, “here we are anyways. Not like death ever stopped us.” </p><p>They cook in silence for a moment.</p><p>“How long has it been, for you,” Dean asks him.</p><p>“A week,” Cas shrugs and looks away. “Maybe two. Time moves differently here.”</p><p>“It was forty years, for me,” Dean says.</p><p>“I know. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I’m not. My life....it was good, Cas. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but I did alright. And I was never alone. I had my family. I had you.” </p><p>“Well,” Cas catches his hand and pulls it away from the stove, “you certainly have me now.” </p><p>The second pan of eggs burns, too.</p>
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